I have 5 months to make this work and I am going to write about my story here as it unfolds — once a week, with transparency, and real numbers.

My financial goals are based on a need to provide for myself and my girlfriend in a fairly expensive area of the country (just outside Washington, DC) along with the new hurdles of health insurance expenses and student loans from graduate school coming due. We could live on ramen, but that’s not a lifestyle decision we’re willing to commit to.

Here are my financial goals for 2012:

• Annual gross income: $78,000
• Targeted monthly net income: $5,000

Well… I’m at the end of my runway.

Let’s talk numbers.

The last 5 months have been fairly… break-even. I just did my taxes and the government felt so sorry for me that they gave me money! But luckily along my journey I found something that excites me, started doing it, and found that it pays rather well.

So, over the next 3-4 months, I will have not only been put on a path to achieve my financial goals… I will have actually achieved them. That is to say, in 3 months time, I will have earned roughly $78,000 in annual gross income.

I also figured that since I was getting dealt such a hot hand that I would propose to my girlfriend — she said yes .

Things are starting to get very interesting. Stay tuned!

While I’m not working in a stodgy office with fun-loving government types, I’ve been hard at work teaching courses and continuing where the Lean Startup Machine (LSM) left off — chipping away slowly at the business that was born from that competition. Things have been exhaustingly busy since my last post, but that’s OK, because I’ve got a plan:

Phase 1

• Build up my experience and brand through practical hands-on experience
• Teach the concepts I am implementing to other companies to help them while also gaining a diverse perspective
• Pursue the LSM idea slowly building traction

• End contract (assuming runway is sufficiently extended)
• Keep teaching
• Assess LSM traction (consider taking on additional contract work if needed/interesting, else proceed to Phase 3)

Phase 3

• Keep teaching
• Focus majority of time on startup

We’ll see how it plays out in the coming weeks. But for now, I am starting to realize the value and magic that delegation can bring. There simply are not enough hours in the day otherwise.

Until next time.

There’s no limit to how much you’ll know, depending how far beyond zebra you go. — Dr. Seuss

Last week I made a decision about the focus of my business and have been working feverishly to move in that direction. I’ve been firing clients, saying ‘no’ to many things I would normally consider, and have become more rigid about doing a ‘so what’ analysis of things, making decisions quickly, and time-boxing.

All of this for the express purpose of clearing the deck so I could a) focus on teaching private & public courses (which we are actively selling) and b) take on work as an embedded consultant with companies to help implement the ideas that we teach (which is set to start later this week). This would provide additional experience and relevant material to the course while also providing us with great marketing material. A win-win, no?

But then I took a slight detour…

Over the weekend I participated in an event called the Lean Startup Machine – an intense workshop/competition where dozens of entrepreneurs learn how to build things that people want. You basically show up with an idea, they give you a framework to follow, along with boatloads of mentoring. Then you “get out of the building”, talk to customers, learn that your original idea is something no one wants, and iterate until you find a real problem. One that people care about so much that they would throw money at you to fix it.

I participated in the same event last year and it saved me from wasting time and money on something fruitless — it’s awesome. This year I wanted to see if I could do better. I wanted to see if I could take an initial idea, work with a small team, and find a kernel of awesome worth pursuing.

Not only did we do it, but we came in 2nd place!

I am humbled by the experience, speechless by the outcome, and confused on how best to proceed with my business. Pursue the kernel of awesome as a startup? Keep going on my current path? Both?

What would you do?

Yeah, I was sitting here, eating my muffin and drinking my coffee, when I had what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity. — Jules, Pulp Fiction

It took 3-1/2 months of my limited 5 month runway, but things are really starting to make sense. Partly because I’m about to reach a burn the boats moment, but also because I am coming to terms with the fact that my current business focus is not working.

For the uninitiated — Arrgyle has been working with small, local business owners to help them understand how to use technology to achieve more with their business. We’ve been getting some work, but it’s a long sales cycle, and it’s tricky. There are a whole host of shops that do pieces of what we do for less money. So when it comes time to negotiate with prospective clients, there’s less focus on the value they would receive and more of an emphasis on what we charge relative to “the competition”.

And when we do get the client, the engagement tends to run longer than it should for a whole host of reasons, most notably: limited focus from the small business owner.

While I’m sure these issues are solvable — my heart’s just not in it.

All the while I’ve been trying to figure out what excites me, and to let that help drive my focus. And I think I’ve finally figured it out. Over the last month I have had the great opportunity to give several talks and teach a couple of courses on a couple of technology topics. While they were fairly terrifying experiences, they were equally exhilarating, fulfilling, and dare I say exciting times.

As a result my focus now is shifting to education. Or as I like to call it — edupreneuring. Arrgyle will still be doing consulting, but the model is going to be very different going forward.

There’s a lot to this topic, so stay tuned for updates next week.

• Book travel to Costa Rica
• Give talk to Selenium DC Meetup
• Complete small business client work & set expectations before leaving town
• Complete (as best you can) all requisite course materials for Costa Rica trip
• Get to Costa Rica
• Teach course
• Enjoy Costa Rica for a day
• Catch red-eye back in time to give a talk at the ALN DC meetup
• Miss connector flight
• Book another flight on a different airline (thanks HipMunk!)
• Work feverishly to finish talk while on layover
• Get home, clean up, hop in the car, and head off to meetup
• Give talk to 70+ people at ALNDC meetup
• Get home & collapse
• Start learning Spanish
• Take learnings from Costa Rica course and make modifications for this week’s course in Charlottesville
• Add small business client work back into the mix
• Complete proposals for new client work

I’m starting to reach my limits. This is not a sustainable pace. Perhaps it’s time to stop and reflect.